Reroll

While still close enough to connect to the cellular network, I get Alice out, step into her, and pull out the business card from the hospital: Samantha Crowley, huh?

I place the call, and it picks up immediately, “Hello  this is Samantha Crowley on a recorded line, what can I do for you Alice?”

I pause, “How could you possibly know….”

“There are only four entities with this number: The hospital, the phone company, you, and me. I have gotten a few random dials from telemarketing companies, but I just answer everyone that way and I'm set.  Additionally, I know your voice from your televised interview, and now that you've called I can add you to my contacts, which will simplify things when it's not you.  What can I do for you?”

Ah.  Joe is really holding up his end, isn't he?  “This may seem a bit odd for my first request, but I need fifty grand cash.”

“No problem; give me twenty minutes. Would you prefer to meet me at the hospital, the bank, or somewhere else for the handoff?”

I mute the phone, redirect the pilot to take the ship and go hover over the hospital, and resume the call, “The hospital, please; I'm already known to show up there.  Is it really that easy?”

“For you? Yes, absolutely. You're the hottest commodity since beer.  There's a bit of paperwork for me, but it is literally my job to handle that, I'm paid well, and you are my only assignment, so you don't need to feel even slightly guilty about taking up my time. To quote from my new job description: ‘Keep Alice happy. If it's legal, and in the budget, she gets it as soon as possible, as smoothly as possible.’  The rest of my handbook is basically just details about how I do things like fetch money to cover whatever… which is most of why this is a recorded line: So they can confirm you actually asked for whatever it is I'm getting for you, and thus that I'm only pocketing my own salary.  I'll be carrying an active audio recorder in my pocket during in person interactions for the same reason. I can turn either or both off if YOU request it, but of course, that request will end up in the official recording, so as to prove that you did.”

“And your salary…” I trail off.

“Comes out of the hospital's budget, not yours. I'm pulling a hundred and twenty grand a year plus medical, dental, and retirement to be on call twenty-four seven; I get overtime pay if I log more than eight hours in a day or forty hours in a week fulfilling your requests, and can transfer this line to a backup in case I have medical appointments or take some vacation time… of which I get a generous amount. This number will even fail over automatically on the third ring if I don't pick up for any reason. I repeat: Do not feel even slightly guilty about calling me, ever, for anything, because this is my job, I am well paid, and for most practical purposes you are my boss.”

So I have a personal assistant now, and my personal assistant draws a better salary than I expected to get after ten years in the workforce.  I guess this is star treatment?  I'm not sure how to process this.

After a bit, I shake my head, “Okay.  Thank you.  I'll meet you at the main entrance soon.”

“Yes ma'am.”

….okay, I think she can know, “Please use ‘sir’ in private, and keep up ‘ma'am’ in public. I don't tell most people because I would rather not muddle the ‘stop the hunting of the nice supernaturals’ message with matters that are of lesser importance than that literal life and death one, but I was quite male before all of this, and still think of myself that way.  Ma'am is preferred in public because of that message, but… well.  I want to hang on to my old self at least a little: Once this is all over and I no longer need to worry about my family becoming collateral damage, I would like to reclaim whatever remains of my old life.”

Samantha doesn't miss a beat, “Yes sir.”

“Thank you.  See you soon.”

“See you soon.”

I hang up, getting the impression that she won't hang up first, ever, and settle in for the short trip to the hospital.

So: I've finally told someone plainly.  Hmm.

I go ahead and wear my Companion Vessel over my Wild Cohort; it prevents my use of Shadowstuff Armament for armor, but increases my physical stats decently, and basically doubles both not only my available hit points in the body I'm using, but also lets me double up on the Regeneration from Eternal Steel (because damage is split evenly between the vessel and cohort, and each has their own pool of hit points and buffs). And of course, if the vessel or cohort breaks or dies in a fight I can just step out of the cohort and armor up.  The companion vessel doesn't even get in the way of flying the ship: The power gloves manage to increase my manual dexterity, despite just how stupid that is.  So yeah, I could do this basically full time.

I shroud myself in a glamor of ‘Alice’, and when we arrive, I fly down invisibly, land, and turn the glamor ‘on’ just for the woman in a nice dark blue blazer and matching skirt holding the “Alice” sign… also the armed hospital guard standing next to her.

She jumps slightly when I appear before her, seemingly from nowhere, but recovers quickly. The guard actually draws on me; he has a good reaction time.

“Sorry about that…” the guard sheepishly puts away his weapon.

I shrug, “Don't be. I can understand being a little twitchy given the circumstances.”

I look over at the woman I presume is Samantha: Black hair, sunglasses that bend the light slightly - prescription, clearly - a large dark blue purse that matches her outfit, low heels that also match, and identical copies of some  slightly more than hand-sized object, one hanging from either side of her belt.

She hands me a smaller purse out of her larger one as she greets me, “Hello Alice, it's good to meet you in person; I'm Samantha.”

“Nice to meet you too; thank you,” I accept the purse, and briefly glance inside: It's five stacks of bank wrapped hundred dollar bills, each labeled with “$10,000” on one line and “$100x100” on the next. More cash than I have ever seen in one place, just like that.  I put it in Warp Storage. I am curious,  though… “Just out of curiosity, what are those?” I point at the two odd objects.

She draws one out, and unfolds it… oh, unfolded it looks like an awkward, ancient cell phone… with a modern touchscreen?  Wait… “They're satellite phones, connected to two independent satellite networks in case either fails: Both ring if you call me.  I also carry portable chargers for them in my purse.  I will still get your call if I happen to be on a flight over the north pole or the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or even if I'm somehow stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Atlantic for a week. Oh yes, and they're dive rated to twenty meters… not that they'll get a signal very far under water… and made to military drop spec. They're high-power models; I just need to avoid parking garages, skyscraper basements, submarines, Faraday cages, and similar. The hospital covers both voice and data for them.”

They are REALLY serious about this.

I consider, “Do you have any tips on being a celebrity?”

That, finally, takes her back slightly, “I would need to look it up. Although…” she pauses, “...most worry about getting down time, you have that: Nobody is reacting to you.  I would have expected at least some attention, but…” I step back to let someone pass me on the sidewalk, and she continues, “That.  Right there.  It's like nobody can even see you.”

I nod, “That's because they can't.  I can choose who can see me, and who can't, and change the set easily. Right now? It's just you and the guard.  My friends have some really cool tricks, and we all share.  So… everyone looking this way is seeing you talk to empty air right now.”

Samantha tilts her head to the left, and pulls a device out of her pocket with a few buttons. She looks at it, pronounces a quick, “Testing, testing,” and I see a bar dance up and down along the side.

She turns to me, keeping the recorder in her line of sight, “Do you mind….”

“Saying something? No problem.”  The lights don't react to me.

Samantha looks at the guard, “Sorry Fred, but I'm going to need a bit more of your time, as a witness that I did the handoff….”

I focus briefly and interrupt, “I should be recording now,” and I can see the lights responding, “This is Alice: I can confirm Samantha handed me a purse containing five stacks of greenbacks, each stack clearly labeled as having ten thousand dollars contained therein.”

Samantha looks down at her recorder, and back up to me; she opens her mouth, takes a breath, and closes her mouth again.

I answer the unasked question, “That is a VERY abusable talent, yes.  If I were less honest, I could walk into a bank, hop over the counter, walk into the vault, empty it, and walk out in broad daylight… and no one would even notice until someone went into the vault and the money was all gone.  Or I could go to the governor’s office, walk right past security, beat the governor's head in with a wrench, and walk out; nobody would notice until they saw the corpse… including the governor. I choose not to do such things, instead choosing to accept mutually agreed pay for doing honest, useful work. But I understand well enough why the organization hunting me exists: Many other people who had comparable Events in the past were very, very bad people, and society has a fully legitimate need to police people like me: They fill that role.” Well, they don't seem to have a bead on ME, but still… “They are, however, overzealous, and go after people who are NOT harmful as well. Further, even after they recognize a person with an Event as harmless, they abuse them, heavily, because they can.  I do not desire to destroy the organization hunting me: Something like it legitimately needs to exist.  I want to reform it so that it is not harmful to those who are not themselves harmful.  In the end, I really just want to have ‘trial by jury’, ‘innocent until proven guilty’, ‘no compulsory labor’, and similar rights that everyone else takes for granted.”

Samantha blinks, “I'm an ant standing before a giant, aren't I?”

I shake my head, “No.  You're not an ant. I'm not a giant. We're both just people.  I just happen to have been given a really big gun, and I can't really get rid of it.  Let me put this another way…” I look at the hospital guard, “You have a gun too. You've been standing here with Samantha for a while, fully armed, knowing full well she's UNarmed and carrying something like a year's salary in cash, and yet she still had the money to hand to me when I arrived. Why is that?”

Fred shrugs, and gives the simple answer I was hoping for: “I don't want to be the bad guy.”

I smile, “Exactly right,” and turn back to Samantha, “We're not so different, not where it matters.” I pause, “Sorry, I didn't mean to get all preachy there, but this is literally life and death stuff for me.”

Samantha recovers quickly enough,“No apologies necessary. If anything, I should apologize, treating you as a monster.”

How many people have I killed at this point? I've lost count… I shrug, “It's fine. I have a lot in common with monsters. But…” I pop my shoulders, “...I have a deal to complete, and…” I look at Fred, “I'm sure you have other things to do, so…” I bow theatrically, and vanish from their sight.